Saved by the bombs

Kurt Vonnegut (Obituaries, April 13) was not, as he light-heartedly claimed, the sole beneficiary of the terrible Dresden air raid. The last 200 surviving German Jews in that part of Germany were herded together in allotted housing in one patch of the city, their own property long since confiscated. Even this existence was about to end. They were ordered to assemble early on the morning of February 14, with hand luggage only, to board a train going east. Ostensibly this was to undertake forced labour in arms factories. Few had any doubt that they were bound for the gas chambers which had already claimed so many of their friends and relations.

That night came the RAF. The Jews escaped. It's all in Viktor Klemperer's masterly diaries. A story he didn't have, but one of his editors added, was of the father who refused to let his family leave the burning city until he was satisfied that the Gestapo headquarters was ablaze. Philip PurserTowcester, Northamptonshire